Lock walks into the living room and sits down. She sips tea from a cup of tea.

"Oh hey Lock," Luna looks over from the sofa.

"Hi," Lock waves.

"Hope you're doing alright," Luna says while busily typing away on her laptop.

"Oh yeah merry Christmas."

"Erm, Merry Christmas Lock!" Luna sounds a hint confused "Hm. Maybe we should get a Christmas tree early on? So Lock, what do nonferals do for Christmas? Halloween seemed interesting with barbecued Coyote. Do y'all have any traditions?"

"Merry christmas!" Lock repeats

"Yeah! Merry Christmas! Oh dear. Um, are you in a feedback loop Lock?"

“Merry Christmas!" Lock repeats.

Cole appears wearing pitch black sunglasses and offers the Fanta to Lock without a word.

Luna speaks up to Cole, "Also um, could you help me unloop her please? Not entirely sure how to do that."

Lock takes the fanter and stares at Cole "Merry Christmas!"

Cole gives a tired sigh with a neutral expression. He moves the wrapping off of lock’s arm to see a tight watch. Luna watches so she can do it herself next time. Lock's watch has a weird interface with a green bar and a grid of 9 dots. Cole looks for buttons on the watch that might line up with the dots. There's only two buttons on the sides of the watch. Cole looks for labels on the buttons but there is none.

"Merry Christmas!" Lock repeats.

Cole taps on one of the dots with a quiet sigh. The dot turns purple. Luna had been standing by Lock to see how this works. "So just press things on the watch until it works?"

Cole shrugs and presses on another dot. It turns purple as well. Cole taps on the rest of the dots. All of them turn purple and flash before turning gray again. The green bar goes down some and turns yellow

"Merry Christmas!" Lock repeats.

Cole tries to draw a L with the dots

"The hell? Is this one of those phone locks?" Luna asks.

The dots flash and turn gray again. The bar goes down more and turns red.

"Guess this is our last chance. Do an S from the top right corner to the bottom left."

Cole draws the super s with a quiet sigh. It flashes red before the screen turns off and Lock collapses. Cole looks concerned as she taps on the watch again. The watch stays off.

Cole presses one of the buttons on the watch but nothing happens. Cole drops her arm and waits as she crosses her own arms.

"Guess maybe this is a restart function? Kinda like with Sparrow, how we would restart her system to release her from the feedback loop."

Cole tries to gently detach the arm with the watch on it. It tugs and doesn't detach. Cole looks very concerned and searches Lock for some type of port. There's just nothing. All she finds is a thin necklace that's been hidden by lock’s fur.

"The heck is that?" Luna points to the necklace.

Cole's head tilts slightly as she gently grabs the necklace and inspects it. It's a choker style necklace with a thin soft fabric covering it.

"Lock wears a collar? News to me," Luna notes this in her phone.

Cole inspects the thin fabric for anything of note. There's a sloppy seam on it that looks hand sewn. Cole quietly sighs and draws her combat knife as she cuts the seam open. The fabric is pulled apart revealing an exposed copper wire. The wire is a large loop with a small device on it. Cole inspects the device as she seems hopeful

"What's that thing?" Luna points to the device. Cole shrugs. Luna nods and continues to watch in mostly silence. It looks handmade, something that could be remotely triggered to emit a shock.

"...a handmade shock collar? Who the hell would be sadistic enough to do that?" Luna asks. Cole holds up a finger as if saying to wait and tries to trigger a shock. Luna nods. Lock's muscles tense up as the device has a small green light turn on. There's a strong electric current going through the wire.

"I guess maybe that's a jumpstart for Lock if she ever shuts down? Gods, she's more android than I thought.”

Cole's head tilts as she stops triggering the shock and checks the watch. Lock relaxes again as the light turns off. There's a bit of smoke that rises from the device. The watch is still off. Cole snaps her fingers in front of Lock's face. Lock doesn't react at all. Cole presses one of the buttons on the watch but nothing happens. Cole tries to take lock's watch off in search of a connector. The watch looks welded into place. Cole stares at Lock while thinking.

"Normally, you just remove the arm and then you have access, but for some reason the arm doesn't release," Luna thinks.

Cole nods in agreement.

"What's different? You pull on it and it doesn't budge. If this is the same Lock from past timelines, then it shouldn't be an issue. Blair must have access somehow." Luna closes her eyes deep in thought. Cole is thinking as well.

Luna tries simply saying her name, "Lock?"

Lock doesn’t respond. Slowly, a lightbulb seems to flicker on for Luna, "This shit can't be that simple right? Blair has access while Lock does not. A parental figure has access while a child does not. Child-proof. And mind you I'm making a massive assumption here. But... like okay, let's put ourselves in Blair's shoes for a sec. She probably doesn't want Lock messing with her own internals. So how does she block Lock from accessing them?"

Cole shrugs as she sits on the ground while continuing to stare.

"Child-proofing. The simplest type would be like one of those weird caps on meds. But would Blair take the most simple route? Either that or a password of some kind, but I almost feel like Blair would expect Lock to brute force it," Luna continues.

Eventually the watch flickers on with a thin red bar left. Lock grumbles.

"Lock?" Luna turns her head to her. Cole smiles slightly and waits. Lock stays limp and grumbles. Cole's head tilts as she crawls over to lock and looks her over with a concerned expression. Lock looks dead tired

"Seems like a low battery? Maybe she just needs a night of rest," Luna suggests.

Cole nods and snaps as a thick gray blanket appears and floats onto lock as she smiles again. Lock is almost instantly asleep.

"Thank you for the help Cole. I appreciate you a lot my friend." Luna smiles at her.

Cole looks over at luna and nods as she stands up and takes a deep breath

"Take care Cole. If you need anything, my telepathy channel is always open," Luna adds.

Cole nods again, as Cole disappears Luna can see her smile instantly drop back into a neutral look. Luna sighs and returns to the couch to note everything that happened. "Poor Cole. Hope everything gets better on their end." 

Lock snaps awake from a nightmare of the incident. "Lock? Something the matter?" Luna turns to face Lock with concern on her face.

"Hm?...uh, no I'm ok." Lock responds.

Luna asks with a sweet tone, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Lock faces Luna as her eye twitches slightly, "Yeah sure."

Luna notes the twitch finding it odd. "Okay. So what happened? You seemed to be fast asleep."

"I watched my friends drift and freeze in the empty void of space." Lock says.

"...Oh gosh, that's horrible Lock. You don't deserve those kinds of nightmares. I'm sorry." Luna sighs as her ears droop. Lock returns to looking at the floor. Luna takes a moment to breathe and think before continuing, "Has... something like that happened to you?"

"Innnn a uh, past timeline yeah" Lock nods slightly.

"Gosh, I can't even imagine how scary that would be. I just... I don't understand how something like that is possible." Luna says solemnly.

"Someone warned everyone about the timeline reset and everyone went insane trying to figure out how to survive it. I was with a part of the population shot into space." Lock explains.

Luna’s face is filled with dread and fear but she quickly snaps out of it to try and regain focus. "Lemme see here, someone found out the timeline was going to be reset and their response was to send the population into space... presumably because if they're not on the current nonferal earth, then they don't get reset. Which explains Sparrow, Nicky, and Isaac’s memories with this most recent reset."

"And now I just get to wait till it happens all over again. I probably won't even remember all this" Lock mumbles.

"That's only if you're on Nonferal Earth when it's reset though. You're currently on a human earth and should be exempt. It's the same theory behind sending part of the population into space." She says this, but realizes resets can happen literally randomly, like this most recent time.

"Took just going back to nonferal earth once last timeline even just for a second. It's going to happen." Lock says defeated.

"I remember that. Then we'll have to stop resets from happening. Attack the source." Luna takes a deep breath. "And besides, even if it does get reset somehow, I've been keeping a damn good log of everything that happens in each timeline. I will not allow memories to go in vain just because someone or something wants to reset everything."

Lock takes a deep breath.

"I've kept this archive for three timelines now. And absolutely nothing will stop us from doing whatever it takes to protect you guys. That's a promise, and I refuse to break those." Luna has a rare serious look on her face, one which she quickly releases. "I'm sorry Lock."

"Thank you" Lock says quietly. She puts the blanket over her face "Goodnight."

"Good night Lock. We'll figure something out together okay?" She smiles and returns to her archival work.

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